


Patience, Tame to Sufferance

by echolalaphile, MilesHibernus



Series: Journeys End [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: After the executions, M/M, Waiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-27 10:50:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20044774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echolalaphile/pseuds/echolalaphile, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilesHibernus/pseuds/MilesHibernus
Summary: One of them had to get to the bench first.  This time, it's Aziraphale.





	Patience, Tame to Sufferance

**Author's Note:**

> People, _we can't stop_. Send help.
> 
> I think the correct phrase is "my hand slipped" but it's gotten beyond that...
> 
> You can use either this or _Though Waiting So Be Hell_ as the beginning of the series, they both work.
> 
> As always, thanks to elroi for the beta.

No one spoke as Aziraphale donned Crowley’s clothing again. Michael scooped up the holy water in one sweeping motion that was trying not to look hurried and left, rather more rapidly than she had arrived.

When the Archangel was gone, Beelzebub said, “Crowley, you are cast out. No one in Hell will help you. You are no longer one of oursz. You are _ caszt out. _” 

Aziraphale gave a small shrug, more a motion of face than shoulder, and said, “It’s not so bad, once you get used to it.”

It had not occurred to him that demons would care about...fellowship, comrades, but from the look on Beelzebub’s face (and Dagon’s, though Hastur glowered with nothing but hatred) they had expected the judgement to hit him hard. And of course Crowley _ did _ care, but Aziraphale would never have expected anyone in the rest of Hell to understand that. To know that the withdrawal of belonging could be used as a punishment. Then again, perhaps that was foolish of him.

They _ were _the Fallen.

“Get out,” said Beelzebub.

“Far be it from me to hang about where I’m not wanted,” said Aziraphale cooly. “But one thing: if you know what’s good for you, nobody get any ideas about the angel. No one else gets to play with my toys.”

They stared at him in stony silence. He shrugged again. “_Ciao _.” 

He sauntered back to the lift and summoned it. It looked a great deal like the one he’d use in Heaven, though the light's buzzing was distracting and there were a number of distressingly unidentifiable stains. He worried that it hadn’t been in character to warn them away from, well, himself, but it seemed like the kind of possessive little touch Crowley would have thrown in for bravado’s sake.

The lift spat him out1 in the lobby of a building not far from Berkeley Square. It only took a few minutes to walk, especially at Crowley’s accelerated pace2; Aziraphale would have miracled himself there, but he didn’t want to risk anyone in Heaven noticing that the wrong being had used a miracle.

He’d rather hoped to see Crowley on the bench already. They’d thought it likely that Heaven would want things done quickly and with little fuss, while Hell would draw it out for the spectacle’s sake. But there was no tartan, no white-blond curls, and Aziraphale felt his unnecessary heart tighten in his chest. Well, Crowley’s heart, technically speaking; Aziraphale was only having use of it. _ A double heart for my single one _, he thought idly, and smiled as he sat. It took him a moment to realise he should slouch a bit, in case anyone might be watching.

All of this intrigue was really very difficult to think through.

It wasn’t that it was difficult to imitate Crowley. They’d known each other for six thousand years; Aziraphale could saunter and drawl just as well as Crowley could fuss and smile. The problem was that he had to _ think _ about it and when he stopped thinking, he stopped imitating. It wasn’t at all like playing a part3, where just being in costume and on stage helped you remember. Wearing Crowley’s body wasn’t at all like wearing a costume; it was too familiar.

Speaking of which, he shouldn’t fidget. Crowley slouched and lounged and draped himself over furniture like a spine was an optional accessory, but he didn’t fidget, no matter how impatient he got.

Aziraphale told himself firmly that there was no reason to be worried. Heaven might well have decided that since they couldn’t kill him they wanted to give Crowley a telling-off, and the Lord Herself knew that Gabriel loved to hear the sound of his own voice. The only danger Crowley’d be in there would be discorporating of boredom, as long as he kept a handle on his tendency to talk back. Which of course he’d _ manage_, because revealing himself would reveal Aziraphale as well and Crowley simply wouldn’t allow that.

It hadn’t exactly escaped Aziaphale’s notice that Crowley did things he shouldn’t, strictly speaking, be _ able _ to do when it came to protecting Aziraphale’s welfare. They’d never discussed, for example, how Crowley had come to find out that Aziraphale was in the Bastille. And that hadn’t even been the threat of death, just discorporation. It made Aziraphale more than a little unhappy to think about, since he didn’t feel he’d returned the favor measure for measure.4

There were a lot of things he didn’t feel he’d returned in equal measure, when it came to Crowley.

Crowley was always doing things for him. It had gotten to the point that Aziraphale had come to depend on the casual little miracles, and shame filled him to think of how seldom he’d done anything similar. The holy water, yes, but did that equal thousands of years of vanished stains, successful plays, restaurant recommendations, and last-minute rescues? He didn’t think that it did. For goodness’ sake, Aziraphale wouldn’t even have tried to avert the Apocalypse if Crowley hadn’t persuaded him into it.

He needed to apologize. And it’s difficult to apologize to someone who isn’t _ there _ . What in Heaven were they _ doing _?

Maybe they had decided that if Crowley couldn’t be killed by hellfire, it was worth trying holy water. Did any of them have that kind of imagination? He thought it unlikely, but once the notion had taken root he couldn’t entirely dismiss it.

A little boy, passing the bench, tugged on his mother’s hand. “Why is that man sad?” he asked, in a piercing whisper.

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” she said, and hurried them on. Aziraphale didn’t notice, sunk in his unhappy thoughts. Perhaps Crowley was already dead. Perhaps he was never going to come back. Perhaps Aziraphale was never going to get a chance to apologize.

Perhaps Crowley had gone to his death thinking that Aziraphale didn’t love him.

And who could blame him if he had thought that? Aziraphale had certainly gone to enough trouble to give the impression, these last few days. _ I don’t even like you _ said nothing, technically, about love, but most beings wouldn’t think to make that distinction, and Crowley could not _ sense _love.

It wasn’t that Aziraphale didn’t know how Crowley felt about him. It was that it was, or at least had been, much too dangerous to allow him to acknowledge it. If they made it through this, then it would be all right; then they wouldn’t have to worry about _ too fast _. But they had to make it through first, and Aziraphale just didn’t know what he was supposed to do if Crowley didn’t come back.

He could storm Heaven! No, he couldn’t storm Heaven, not alone. He didn’t trust his own ability to _ sneak _ in, either; of course there were back doors, entrances that spontaneously generated if you knew where to look and how to use them, but sneaking was not a strength of most angels, and certainly not of Aziraphale’s. He’d be found and killed long before he could locate Crowley, and while the idea of leaving a world with no Crowley in it held significant appeal, Aziraphale didn’t feel that was...allowable. If he’d somehow managed to escape judgement and Crowley had not, it was no more than his duty to continue to exist so that someone would remember that _ Crowley _had existed.

But perhaps that was cowardice. Perhaps it was his fear of oblivion. And if he didn’t try, he’d never know; they could have Crowley in a cage somewhere, something that burned him constantly but never _ let _ him die, where he couldn’t even sleep to escape them, and Aziraphale would _ never know _. Not even when the Last Days really came; there was no resurrection for the likes of them.

“Fancied a change today, dear boy?” A prim voice came from over his shoulder, and it was all Aziraphale could do not to yelp. Crowley, he knew, did not yelp. Clinging grimly to the last of his control, he tilted his head lazily back and quirked an eyebrow above the sunglasses. “Whassat?”5  
  
“You’ve taken the other side of the bench,” Crowley pointed out, seating himself as neatly on the left side of the bench as Aziraphale could have done himself.

_ Bless _ it. So he had. All the thought he’d put into copying Crowley’s mannerisms and then he’d gone and sat on his own side of the bench without even noticing. Subterfuge was really _ not _ his strength. 

“I haven’t kept you waiting long, I hope?” Crowley glanced at him. “You know how angels are, always wanting to talk, took me forever to get away.”  
  
Aziraphale shrugged. “Think nothing of it, angel. I’ve kept you waiting much longer before now.” Beside him, his own face did something complicated,6 then Crowley coughed and tried to cover it by relaxing into an elaborate sprawl, gazing out over the park. Aziraphale drew himself up to sit straight. It wasn’t very comfortable, given the spine he was working with, and he suspected his body didn’t enjoy lounging either. 

“How was Hell?” Crowley asked, and he sounded more anxious than he would have liked to know Aziraphale could hear. They’d almost fought about it; Crowley had been terrified the demons would torture ‘him’ before they tried to execute him. He’d only given in the fifth time Aziraphale had pointed out that they didn’t really have any other options.

“It was Hell. You know how it is.” He hesitated, and plunged on, “I’d have done a thousand times worse to keep you safe.” Crowley wasn’t facing him anymore, but he noticed the momentary stillness in the demon’s form. Well, best not to unpack all of that out here in public. “And how was Heaven?” he asked, which he felt was an odd choice for a safer topic, and yet.

“You know how it is,” said Crowley with a touch of asperity, and then a little softer, “They tried to kill you, angel.”

“We knew they would, my dear,” said Aziraphale gently.

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” said Crowley, in a voice that promised unpleasantness for someone, most probably Gabriel. “Do you think they’ll leave us alone now?”

Aziraphale said truthfully, “At a guess, they’ll pretend it never happened.” Who knew how long they’d _ keep _pretending, but for now it seemed to be all right. Crowley made a sound of agreement, but he was still looking straight ahead. “Right,” said Aziraphale, “anyone looking?” Crowley was really better at detecting that sort of thing.

“Nobody,” Crowley replied after a moment. “Swap back then?” He offered his hand.

Aziraphale took it.

**Author's Note:**

> 1Not, thank the Lord, literally.back
> 
> 2He once likened it to “a cheetah that swallowed some stilts, no, not two, more than two, actually, except graceful.” They’d been quite drunk at the time.back
> 
> 3Aziraphale’s Prospero had been lauded, by people who weren’t even Crowley. He’d sold it in his reports as encouraging creativity and art.back
> 
> 4Except for making sure Crowley didn’t actually discorporate himself by alcohol poisoning that time in Spain. He and Crowley remembered Barcelona very differently.back
> 
> 5It was not quite physically painful to let go of his enunciation like that.back
> 
> 6 Aziraphale recognized the expression from having worn it himself, on occasions like finding out Crowley knew what he smelled like.back


End file.
